Aha! It's Sunday night and I baked Saturday. I have no excuse not to blog about this! :) Just in time for all of your holiday feasts hopefully, too.

Last night we went over to our friends Beth and Justins' house to celebrate Justin's birthday. Beth and I spent the whole day shopping for ingredients and decorations. We had baked brie, goat cheese with honey and green apples on crackers, egg rolls, spinach and artichoke dip...so much food! But naturally no birthday is complete without a big ol' hunk of cake with (literally) your name on it. Last week I emailed Beth with a cake idea that I've had my eye on for a while, from Smitten Kitchen (natch), and she was nice enough to let me give it a go on her hubby's birthday!

The cake is an epresso chiffon cake, brushed with an espresso-rum syrup between the layers, and then frosted with a chocolate buttercream. Ohh yeaaaah. Sounds delicious, right? Well tell a bunch of party goers that there's rum involved with the cake and it turns into "So wait...there's rum in the cake? Or in the frosting...? Or wait...where's the rum...?" Which was hilarious, since the rum's actually a very small part of this cake. It made me think of this:

The cake actually turned out fantastic, even though I had to trash my first set of eggs whites from a tiny bit of yolk (once the yolks in there, don't even bother trying to beat your egg whites. It just doesn't work). I also LOVED making the chocolate buttercream. Who knew that you could make frosting in the food processor?! Genius! It was so easy. I made it without the chocolate at first, scooped out enough for the writing, and then added the melted chocolate to the rest. It tasted absolutely delicious! Like brownies, or fudge, or something else intensely chocolatey and delicious.

So I make the frosting, frost the cake, pipe on "Happy Birthday Justin!" with a couple stars, and then pipe on some small dots to the bottom of the cake. A couple things happen here. I was very nervous about tearing the cake, and didn't have time to freeze the layers to make it easier, so I thickly piped on the frosting around the edges, swirled it in the middle, and then smoothed it out with my offset spatula. Holy cow. SO much easier than scooping on a big mound in the middle and spreading from there!! I will do this every time from now on!!

Then I piped on the birthday message. Yikes. So maybe I had a drink while baking...then maybe I had a glass of wine while frosting (Hey! It's a PARTY!)...so maybe I forgot the "D" in "birthday." Woops! :) We all got a big laugh out of it, and I shoved it in there anyway.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line the bottoms of three 8- or 9-inch round cake pans with rounds of parchment or waxed paper, but do not grease.

In a medium bowl, combine the oil, egg yolks, espresso and vanilla; whisk lightly to blend. In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, 1 cup of the sugar, the baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Set the dry ingredients aside.

In a large mixer bowl with an electric mixture, whip the egg whites with the cream of tartar on medium-low speed until frothy. Raising the mixer speed to medium-high and gradually add the remaining half cup of sugar. Continue to beat until soft peaks form; do not whip until stiff or the cake will shirk excessively upon cooling.

Add the espresso-egg yolk mixture to the dry ingredients and fold together just enough to combine. Add one-fourth of the beaten egg whites and fold them in to lighten the batter. Fold in the remainder of the whites just until no streaks remain. Divide the batter among the three prepared pans.

Bake the cakes for about 18 minutes each, or until a cake tester or wooden toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Allow to cool completely in the pans. When cooled, run a blunt knife around the edge of the pans to release the cakes. Invert onto wire racks and remove the paper liners.

To assemble the cake, place one layer, flat side up, on a cake stand or serving plate. Soak the cake with 1/3 cup of the Espresso Syrup (below). Spread about 1 1/3 cups of the Instant Fudge Frosting (below) evenly over the top of the layer. Repeat with the next layer, more syrup and more frosting. Finally, top with the third layer. Soak it with the remaining syrup and frost the tops and sides with the remaining frosting.

Espresso SyrupMakes one cup1/3 cup hot, freshly brewed espresso

1/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup dark rum, such as Meyer’s

In a bowl, stir together the espresso and sugar until the sugar dissolves. Add the rum and let cool to room temperature.Don’t want to use rum? (I know someone will ask.) I’d swap it with water, perhaps flavored with some vanilla extract. Worried about the caffeine? Use decaf espresso.

Now, this is, to be honest, a fancy name for a quick buttercream but it’s got two things going for it that are worth mentioning: One, the frosting isn’t flavored with cocoa (too mild) or even good semisweet chocolate, but unsweetened chocolate. Brilliant, I tell you. I find most quick buttercreams way too sweet, and although this one still is quite sugary, the super-bitter chocolate goes a long way to mitigating it. The second thing worth mentioning is this: Did you know you can make quick buttercreams in the food processor? I had no idea, I hadn’t even considered it before. But there I was whirling everything together in ten seconds flat and I will make it no other way from now on.

Makes about 5 cups

6 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled

4 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar (no need to sift)

3 sticks (12 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature

6 tablespoons half-and-half or whole milk

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Place all of the ingredients in a food processor and pulse to incorporate, then process until the frosting is smooth.

Okay, my notes now.

We used extra virgin olive oil, because I goofed and forgot to bring vegetable oil. Didn't make a difference at all, so if you need to use it, no big deal (it's probably not ideal, though).

Don't have an espresso machine? I'll bet you've got a Starbucks! Venti cup about half full. Just microwave it before you make the syrup, so it's hot enough to dissolve the sugar.

From what I could see when I made the cakes, I had enough batter to make three thin-ish cakes, or two regular-sized cakes. I just made two. Everybody loves a little less clean up!

For the frosting: I used whole milk, not half-and-half, and it was RICH. Rich as in "Oh em geez I need some milk with this cake, stat," rich. I think half-and-half might have given us all heart attacks.

Also, as mentioned above, I didn't add the chocolate right away, since I wanted some white frosting to write with. I scooped some plain buttercream into my piping bag, then added the melted chocolate to the rest.

As you can see, no one hated it! :) All in all, I'd say this recipe is definitely a keeper. Was it a little complicated to make? Sure. I'd rate it "Intermediate" from the separating eggs, folding in egg whites, and because it's a delicate cake (harder to frost). If you've got the time and patience, though, it's definitely worth the hard work!

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About Me

By day: simple government worker in our lovely Nation's Capitol. By night: bakery goddess...okay not yet...but on my way! This blog tells the tales of my culinary adventures: the good, the bad, and the ugly.